This is not a routine board refresh; it’s an opportunity to shape new power dynamics and structures and co-create a new culture around governance.
This is not a routine board refresh but one that aims to change the board as a whole. It’s an opportunity to not simply absorb new members into the existing culture but to co-create it together.See more at “Shaping Culture Through Key Moments,” Grantmakers for Effective Organizations It’s essential to pay attention to formal and informal ways that power operates on the board and to shape power dynamics and structures intentionally. With a critical mass of impacted community members in the mix, new and continuing board members can be transparent about how the board currently operates and intentional about shaping what comes next.
Leadership Roles
Acknowledge and be intentional about who holds power. Board officers typically have more authority or power than other board members, as do certain committees, such as the finance, governance, and executive committee. A board serious about shifting power to impacted communities should consider ways that new members can move quickly into these roles, while also scrutinizing the differential power those roles hold.
This is also a good time to re-think leadership as an individual endeavor. Co-leadership or other collective models that distribute leadership may help optimize the opportunity to shift power. Make sure that bylaws or other governing policies don’t block these kinds of innovations — and change them if they do!
Making Decisions
Meetings
The impetus for rethinking board meetings is to make them more accessible to impacted community members, but even conventional boards could benefit from an overhaul that makes meetings more relevant, enjoyable, and effective for everyone.
Some foundation boards use something akin to Roberts Rules of Order to structure discussions and decisions. Often, there’s not full understanding of or fidelity to the process, but nonetheless a sense that order is in order. While structure is not inherently bad, any default structure warrants examination and all structures should be built intentionally to reflect and support a group’s purpose and values.
Adopting a consensus decision-making approach opens meetings up to more perspective sharing and creative thinking. Structuring meetings with consent agendas, as BoardSource“Consent Agendas,” BoardSource recommends, gives the majority of time over to strategic and generative discussion.
As the people around the boardroom change, there’s an opportunity to learn from the many ways that impacted community members engage with each other to get all sorts of things accomplished in and for their communities. Undoubtedly, there will be entirely different ways of thinking about how to set the agenda, structure meetings, and make decisions, as well as build relationships, share and co-create cultural rituals, break bread together, and more.
Communication and Conflict
Boards must ensure that all voices are not just welcomed but genuinely heard and considered, especially those most impacted by the foundation’s work. Good facilitation creates space for divergent opinions, a culture of healthy debate, and effective communication across differences.
For many people, conflict conjures images of heated warfare or uncomfortable impoliteness. But conflict is an important window into differences in interests, needs, and perspectives. By suppressing conflict or engaging in it poorly, groups limit their ability to fully understand a challenge or opportunity.
Impacted community members with experience in grassroots organizing or other community-led efforts might have norms and practices to offer for communicating more directly, balancing assertiveness and listening, taking space and making space, and negotiating differences to reach stronger, consensus decisions. Ask new members how they prefer to communicate. Often, these kinds of conversations surface norms that have been operating invisibly. Making them explicit is essential to co-creating the board culture.
Conflicts of Interest
In the name of managing risk, many conventional boards overly avoid connections with impacted communities, rationalizing it as objectivity. Lived experience and connections are treated as a liability, while the experience and connections of more conventional board members are automatically seen as assets and not as potential conflicts of interests. A foundation that won’t consider organizers who advocate for tenants’ rights as board members, for example, but allows real-estate developers to serve without scrutiny, is thinking about conflicts too narrowly. Without organizers and others who understand first hand and are accountable to impacted communities in the boardroom, the foundation is less likely to fully value or invest in that work.
Interconnectedness should be treated as an asset, not a disqualifier People who bring real and sometimes lifelong connections to communities, projects, organizations, and networks tend to be more accountable.
Conflicts will need to be managed across the board without stigmatizing potential conflicts among impacted community members or glossing over potential conflicts among more conventional board members. Transparency is a key element of any conflict of interest policy.
Funders must develop clear policies and ask all board members to regularly review them and disclose potential conflicts. They should also offer training and support, such as around how to mitigate conflicts so they are not a barrier to participation. Be mindful that impacted community members may feel the burden of accountability more acutely. given their closer connections to community, and consider what additional support they might need.
Accessibility
Accessibility means honoring people’s realities and lives, and disability justice is an important framework to integrate in any board. Disability justice moves beyond ADA compliance and towards a more relational and intersectional approach, recognizing access as a collective responsibility and confronting ableism. It asks: Who is participating? Who’s burning out? Who seems reluctant or unable to contribute?
As members join, boards should inquire about access needs to ensure all can fully participate. Funders can interrupt dominant culture norms like long meetings and written materials and encourage multiple ways to contribute that don’t over-privilege those who speak quickly or loudly. Creating more flexible pacing, normalizing rest and silence, and creating a culture of care will strengthen a board overall and benefit everyone.
Accessibility also includes consideration about where and when meetings take place. Begin by asking what works for new members — evenings, weekends, remote options — rather than assuming traditional daytime in-person meetings work for everyone. Ask about location, too, and consider options openly. Community spaces such as library rooms signal inclusion and might be more centrally located than the foundation’s offices.
People with hearing impairments or who communicate more comfortably in languages other than English may feel marginalized and excluded from board opportunities. Interpretation and translation can enable people to participate more fully. It also can push groups to speak in plain language that can be easily understood by diverse members.
